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| In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the All-Merciful |\
| Greeting of Allah be upon Muhammad and the pure members of his House |\
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Salamun 'Alaykum
The pains taken by our Maraji' to verify the authenticity of Ahadith are
often not appreciated by the masses. The following question on verifying
the authenticity of Ahadith was kindly answered by Br. Mustafa Jaffer.
Jazakallah,
Akil Karim
Acting Moderator for ABDG-A
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QUESTION:
What are the Shia conditions for proper hadith verification? A Sunni
brother was claiming that our conditions were more restrictive and
unaccepting of 'ackowledged' hadith of the Prophet?
Moreover, Why, in particular, do we not accept Bukhari? Aside from the
argument based on the fact that he was Sunni... is there any other reason?
Was he part of the government, etc???
ANSWER:
A hadith is mainly verified from the chain of its narrators. Scholars,
before deciding to either accept or reject any hadith, will spend time in
studying the lives of all the narrators of the hadith. Aspects to be studied
include the era in which the narrator lived - does it coincide with the era
of the authority he is reporting on? Was the narrator old and learned enough
to understand the hadith? Was the narrator a renowned fasiq(one who commits
sins openly)? Has the narrator ever been known to fabricate a hadith??
Moreover, a hadith is also deemed accepted or rejected based on its
contents. Do the contents of the hadith contradict the Holy Quran?? Is the
content of the hadith against logic??
There are many ahadith that have been acknowledged by all Muslims. Others
have been accepted by all, but with differences in versions.
Bukhari, in particular, is a Sunni scholar who compiled the ahadith, thus
forming what we today know as the Sahih Bukhari. The fact is that we Shias
do not reject Bukhari. There are many ahadith in Sahih Bukhari that have
been accepted by Shias, but we Shias do not hold that whatever is in Sahih
Bukhari is always true. For that reason, we also do not accept everything
that is contained in Bihar-ul-Anwar, a book in which Allama Majlisi has
compiled all the ahadith!!
In conclusion, a hadith is accepted because of the authenticity of the
narrators and the soundness of its content. Any doubts in the character and
personality of any one narrator out of a chain of narrators will render the
hadith unacceptable by Shia scholars.
Was Salaam,
Mustafa